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Jaquio
Who is Jaquio, you might ask? It is well that you do. But you might as well ask something like, "What is power?" or, "Why is there a ghoul gnawing on my arm?" Such answers cannot be easily given, though if you were smart, you'd run away before that ghoul manages to eat up to your elbow. Name: Jaquio Surname: Svensson Title/Nickname: "Oh man, not him again." Race: Forsaken Class:'''Warlock '''Age: 32 < At death Appearance: Other than being dead, none. Alignment: Selfish. Not exactly evil, but he will use means considered such to further his own ends, along with "helping" people. Psychology: He has always been a self-serving sort. His own desires tend to come first in any thought process. If he seems to be helping someone, there's an ulterior motive. Very rarely is he genuinely helpful. Cruelty is not his nature but can easily express such tendencies if the situation requires it. Scholomance was nice, at this time of year. The leaves were turning orangish-red, the water surrounding the island was a cool, crisp temperature, and the people inside the school were all dead. Rather, they were Undead. Because Scholomance was a Scourge institution. Oh, no one knew it for a while. No one really minded the arcane stidies, and the occasional "innocent" experiment with the darker side of the occult. This sort of thing happened more, and more, until demons were commonplace, and no one saw any difference in anyone else's research. The Headmaster encouraged people to dabble in whatever they wished. But one day, they all woke up dead...and never knew it, and continued as if nothing were wrong. Now the place is infested with the dead. Some sapient, few sentient. Most just continue their research as if nothing's gone wrong, and have fits of rage and attack those that they think interfere. Some few inhabitants noticed the change, in themselves, and in the immediate world around them. Jaquio was one of them. He was a bright pupil, who mostly experimented in fire magics and shadow. Demons were anathema to him; if you could control forces of nature, what use were beings of another dimension? And ugly ones, at that? Better to set fire to someone yourself, than depend on an unreliable creature who was only obeying by force. Some were pliable only because they wanted to kill, or destroy, and Jaquio used those sparingly. When Jaquio realized that everyone around him, including himself was dead..not breathing or being hungry was a big clue..he was frightened for a while, naturally. But he continued his learning, in spite of this setback. It was a help, really. There was no longer a need to sleep, eat, or other bodily functions. He had a clearer head, and emotions were largely forgotten...except rage, resignation, and perhaps sadness, and loss. He had no real idea how long he'd been like this, time wasn't exactly paid attention to in the school, once the changes had happened. Jaquio didn't exactly graduate. He simply left, under cover of night, taking a few possessions with him. He had to kill a few students to leave, and that sort of thing was frowned on. Besides, some of the teachers had undergone some changes, and he definitely didn't want to see them again in their present states. He felt more free than he had in a long while, and the persistent whispering of the students and faculty as they worked...and this one that constantly hissed.."Obey me...obey me..." were getting on his last nerve. He made his way west, eventually entering Brill. Jaquio was escorted into the small town by a small group of guards led by an Executor, who asked him where he was from, and who his allegiances belonged to. He answered as best he could about where he came from, but for his loyalties, he only said, "I serve myself, or whoever will make me stronger after i kill them, or perhaps loyalty can be bought for a price." The Executor almost smiled at that, then backhanded Jaquio, and put him to work in the stables, as a punishment for his impertinence. Jaquio eventually learned the right words to say, it wasn't too hard to pick up from other people's conversations who was in charge. Eventually when reasked, he mouthed the words everyone else had regarding Sylvanas, and how he only served her. In time, he eventually did a few times, personally called into service. She did it mostly to get him killed. Unfortunately, this didn't happen. He would always manage to come back, scraped up or burned, but successful. She didn't exactly like him, considered him a personal pet peeve, but not one important enough to get rid of. Jaquio was successful, and that was that. He didn't exactly like her either, he knew she was trying to kill him. Varimathras he especially hated, here was a demon that was not exactly fettered, allowed to roam relatively free, and once or twice he even heard other people whispering his name, talking about how *he* should be in charge. So, there was a love/hate relationship, minus the love. Jaquio was a useful tool. Once in a while, he was her right hand in matters. He was trustworthy, in that he would act viciously when the situation called for it. Other times, he was ignored. She knew it irritated him, and he knew she knew it, so he would try to avoid Undercity, lest he be summoned for another suicide mission or other irritating task. He knew who was in charge, afterall. He just didn't like it one bit. Time had passed, for Jaquio. Notable incidents had happened since his roaming began. He had gained power and authority, allies...and ambition, balanced by apathy. One evening he returned to Undercity, having been summoned to the Royal Chambers for Sylvanas' annual suicide mission, to find he was not alone. A man named Dregnon was there, a fellow Forsaken, claiming to be a Necromancer, wanting a grant and permission to research ways to increase Undercity's forces; more ghouls, abominations, and perhaps a Lich or two. Necromancy is one of the few taboos that the Forsaken have, and for an obvious reason: the Forsaken are undead, and such practices come very close to the domination they oh so recently escaped from. Such people are watched very closely, and if they make a mistake, even a harmless one, they tend to be slain out of hand. Dregnon did not get his grant, or permission. The request seemed to incense Sylvanas. She temporarily forgot about Jaquio, and began to vent her anger on him, when he began to simply walk away, refusing to "die uselessly because she happened to be turned into a Banshee type at 'that time of the month' if elves have it...so it's permanent." The resulting argument drew out a Forsaken by the name of Richard, who began a series of sycophantic toadying, which drew Jaquio back into the room; Jaquio could hardly resist the chance to verbally abuse one of Sylvanas' bootlickers. Or so the man seemed to be. Dregnon counseled Jaquio to leave while he could, but Jaquio was angered, and did not listen. He should have. The man, whose name was Richard, and Jaquio had some interesting words. When Richard was eventually insulted enough to call for the guards, Jaquio insultingly challenged an honor match, to the death, between Warlocks. Richard accepted scornfully, promising to take Jaquio down quickly, so they both went outside via the sewer entrance, and the duel began with a Priest as a witness. Richard was no match for Jaquio's might, he being a Warlock with long study in what skills he called "good for setting people's faces on fire", and Richard being an Apothecary, a scientist. Richard then fled his death at Jaquio's hands, into the sewers, only to be cornered in one of the tunnels. At the last moment, a random Orc guard stepped in the way of Jaquio's scythe, and was killed instead of Richard, allowing Richard to escape in the confusion caused by Richard's calling for the guards, saying a mad criminal murdered one of their own. Jaquio escaped, narrowly, out the sewer exit, and fled to Silverpine, to meet up with his new fellow fugitive, Dregnon the Necromancer. A series of events took place that made both realize that Sylvanas was no longer in charge of Undercity, that she and most or perhaps all of Undercity's hierarchy was under Richard's chemical mind domination. The pair swore vengeance for their own reasons, which at that time were different from each other's, and began to search for ways of empowering themselves, and spread the word of what happened to the nearby races, incidentally gaining favor with them in exchange for information on attacks to be made in their lands, by Richard using Undercity's armies. One notable event that took place, was Jaquio had followed a group of Humans and High elves into Alterac, where a necropolis had hove into view over the crater, and watched them fight many Scourge on the ground, then proceed to enter the necropolis itself, and somehow...Jaquio was not sure how it happened...crashed it into the crater where Dalaran was ripped from. The humans left seemingly without taking the effort to plunder or salvage anything. How very careless, Jaquio thought. After the humans and elves left, Jaquio spent the next few months with Dregnon's assistance via zombies and skeletal miners, secretly pieced the necropolis mostly back together, with some spare parts salvaged from other necropolii found in the Plaguelands to complete it, and they wasted no time moving it out of Alterac to escape notice, to Silverpine, placed over the dividing wall separating the Horde/Forsaken half from the Human/High elven half. Thus was the beginning of Jaquio's rise to power as a dominating force in the Eastern Kingdoms. It was named Stratholme's Vengeance, after his home town. With Dregnon's assistance, he began to populate the 'Vengeance, picking up some small necromantic skill in the process, but only able to make small, weak undead, enough barely to do small tasks such as cleaning the place up, and perform minor repairs and mine rocks that aren't too heavy. Eventually, Dregnon was able to find corpses enough to make abominations, and Banshees, to guard the necropolis against intrusion. Now with a secure power-base, Jaquio began to look for sources of power within the world. He found one in Kalimdor, by sheer accident, in Darkshore. While riding through the forest on the road, he saw through the trees a large white object, and a brightly glowing object sticking out of it, and rode closer for a better look. He saw several races gathered there, none of them looking all that benevolent. Our gentle Warlock wasted no time in looking around and left the area and enlisted help in the form of an elven wizard, who agreed to come help for a share of the power, and returned several days later, and destroyed the group of people who turned out to be Azeroth's doomsday cultists, the Twilight Cultists, and took one of their books that wasn't destroyed in the conflagration of magical fires. Jaquio gave the elven wizard three of his personal spells, and the wizard left satisfied, leaving Jaquio alone with the book, the skeletal object, and the brightly glowing object. It turned out, after Dregnon arrived with skeletal guards intended to keep the place secure against more cultists, that the objects in question were in fact, the remains of an Old God pet killed thousands of years ago, and the weapon that killed it, a glaive wielded by a stone giant, embedded in the skull, the skeletal object. The book had potent destructive spells which Jaquio committed to memory, ones that he could, anyway, some were beyond his grasp at that time. Jaquio had a new power source for the necropolis, but it would only be useful in that general area of Kalimdor, which annoyed Jaquio somewhat, but Dregnon pointed out that it was better than nothing, and the book was a bonus at the least. Jaquio grudgingly agreed. More time passed. Jaquio committed more of the book to memory, though slowly, and passed some of the knowledge on to Dregnon. Jaquio had moved the Stratholme's Vengeance from Silverpine to Tranquillien, in Ghostlands by this time, to escape the near constant damaging attacks made on it by Richard. Jaquio sought refuge there, and in return for the Blood Elves' hospitality, he committed his forces to cleansing the Ghostlands for Blood Elven reoccupation, and the personal conquest of Deatholme, the largest Scourge base in the Eastern Kingdoms. His and Dregnon's notoriety in Forsaken society grew, and they attracted followers, and became what was tentatively known as the Forsaken Resistance. Most wanted to become Necromancers, making Dregnon's hands full, and causing Jaquio to abandon his own studies, redoubling his efforts into "face burning offing", because he felt that eventually all the skeletons would get broken, and THEN what would happen? It'd all be down to Humans in plate mail and big shiny paladin weapons and spells, against a bunch of skinny pasty-faced weaklings in smelly robes with daggers and sticks that don't know how to defend themselves properly. Someone, had to know how to set people's faces on fire in this group, and since he already knew how...why not let it be him? Jaquio also gained an assistant named Henry, who pursued his own line of study between both Jaquio and Dregnon, though he stayed around Dregnon more for teaching...necromancy was in vogue, that season, Jaquio supposed. Henry vanished though, under mysterious circumstances...perhaps he just wandered off to gain power on his own? Jaquio never did find out. The one event in the Resistance's rise to power that made the most impact, was the Battle of Andorhal. The details of this incident are well known, and won't be accounted here. But, the end result was that the city was cleansed, in more ways than one. In return for the Resistance's help, they were allowed to remove every single Scourge corpse they could get their hands on, which was quite a few. The rough count was over six thousand bodies, which after much stitching and repairing, and necromantic healing and reanimating, came to a total of two thousand newly reanimated soldiers for Jaquio and Dregnon's army of undead. If there was any doubt that the Resistance was a force to be reckoned with before, there was none now. For several weeks, caravans of corpses made their way from Andorhal into Tranquillien, and space was at a premium in Tranquillien now, especially with six thousand corpses lying about, and finally the stench of rotting corpses began to offend Blood Elven noses. Plans were made and executed for the assault and capturing of Shalandris Isle, a Night Elven spying base. The attack was quick and lethal, with very little property damage, and renovations of the Isle were commenced, turning it into a personal research facility for Dregnon and his apprentices. Soon, the facility was in operation, and most of the corpses and soldiers, such as they were, were moved there. Peace, quiet, and no vaguely veiled snobbery. All was well. Meanwhile, Jaquio also roamed the Plaguelands, and learned...the hard way in some instances...about a group of people serving what they called "The Dark God". Jaquio was not very concerned, there were always at least one group of cultists in every land, and this new group was hence, no surprise at all. He spoke civilly to them, treated them with respect, just in case there really WAS a "Dark God" out there somewhere; one cultist was a Gnome...what kind of God, Dark or otherwise, would let a Gnome represent it? On second thought, it seemed appropriate after all, in Jaquio's mind...these cultists harassed the humans and High Elves though, and though Jaquio acted as if he were incensed, they thought he was an ally ever since the Andorhal incident, he took no aggressive action against anyone. Better to remain neutral, just in case there really was something to their cult. One never knew. There were more incidents regarding Richard, who was repeatedly killed in these, leading Dregnon and Jaquio to believe that his constant resurrection from the dead was something that needed fixing, in the style of a crowbar to the phylactery way of things. Plans were made, one of them being Jaquio using his skills in Enchanting and Tailoring to create a cloak which would allow him to plane shift, and enter Undercity completely undetected, to conduct espionage, and perhaps some sabotage and kidnapping...but he had to go to Outland to get certain materials, which took time, way too much in Jaquio's opinion, but he got all but one needed item before being called back in an emergency, which turned out to be something unexpected, but would be dealt with in time. This problem, involving a demon, still persists, and has not been solved yet.